


The Way We Danced Until Three

by lammermoorian



Series: wincest drabs [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Jazz Age, M/M, Requited Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 15:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6245572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lammermoorian/pseuds/lammermoorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in Europe, 1927. Prince Dean is getting married to an angel of the battlefield, and Sam wishes he could hate her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Danced Until Three

**Author's Note:**

> Because period setting wincest is best wincest

Dean’s getting married in the spring.

Sam doesn’t want to think about it.

It’s not that he doesn’t care for Cassie. She’s whip-smart, well spoken, kind, and beautiful to boot. Dean met her deep in the trenches, the bloodshed and battle doing nothing to quell the intense, passionate love they found that they had for each other, the army nurse and the crown prince. They kept in touch after the end of the Great War, even after Dean withdrew from his family and friends, preferring solitude instead of his former outgoing nature. Not even Sam could draw him out of his shell, despite his best efforts. But, after several years, Dean brought Cassie back to their home, announcing their engagement to their father and to the world at large. Sam has tried to be nothing but supportive, as a good brother should, but he doesn’t have to like it. After all, Sam has secretly wanted to be in her position since before he could remember.

To try to quell his budding depression - the last thing he wants is to be a source of sorrow during such a joyful time - he’s taken to spending more and more of his time in the library of the Winchester estate. He’s often slept in the library as a child, up all hours poring over every book he could struggle through, only to be found and roused by his brother in the morning, steaming mug of tea in his hand. How strange it is, then, when he finds Dean in his favorite chair, hunched over next to the lit fireplace. “Dean?” His brother grunts, but doesn’t stir. “What are you doing here?” Still, Dean says nothing. It’s only when he turns to leave that his brother finally speaks.

“Please. Stay.” As much as he wishes to go, he could never deny his brother anything. He lets himself fall into the seat opposite, body hitting heavily against the soft, blue cushion. Dean’s face is unreadable, pinched in a way that Sam knows used to mean that he was afraid of something.

As it is, he mostly just looks tired. His shoulders slump forward, perfectly symmetrical head in his large hands, fingers raking through his hair. Sam eyes them enviously. Even exhausted as he is, Sam’s brother is the most handsome man he has ever known. “Funny to find you here,” he chuckles, hoping to break the tension in his brother’s shoulders, “when usually our positions are reversed. In fact, I can’t recall the last time you even set foot in here, let alone outside of your suite.” Dean hums, deep in his chest, but doesn’t rise to the light taunt. The silence falls between them again, heavy and thick, until Sam can no longer take it. “Dean,” he sighs, “if you aren’t going to speak to me -

"I was waiting for you.”

Sam blinks. “For me?”

Finally, he looks up, bright green eyes holding him captive. “I knew I’d find you here, eventually. And despite what you say, I have left my rooms.” Finally, a rise out of him. Sam would smile, if Dean didn’t look so stone-faced. “Not that you would have known that, given how you have been avoiding me for the last few months.”

So the jig is up, then. “No, I haven’t,” he denies, just to be contrary.

Dean’s smile is thin, tight-lipped and angry. “You missed my birthday dinner.” Sam has nothing to say to that. Excuses linger on the tip of his tongue - Baron Brady keeping him out too long, taking him from club to club, plying him with drink after drink after, all on Sam’s request, of course - but he doesn’t say any of that. Whatever excuse he can conjure up won’t matter. Birthdays had always been sacred between them, even while Dean was at war, Sam sending letter after letter long after his birthday had passed, in the hopes that one of them would reach him, wherever he was. For Sam to miss a birthday is nothing short of a slap in the face. Sam had known that, and yet he did it anyway. The knowledge that Cassie would be at his side, in Sam’s special place, was too much to bear. “Is it something I’ve done?” Dean holds his arms out, eyes wide and hopeful. “Something I’ve said?”

“What? No!” Sam rubs his hands on his thighs, looking away. “No. You are the best brother a man could ask for.”

“Then…” Realization dawns on him, slowly, like a sunrise in his handsome face. “It’s because of the wedding isn’t it.”

He sighs. “Dean - ”

“Brother, if I have not given you enough attention during this incredibly busy time for me, then I do apologize, but - ”

“It’s not - It’s not what you think.” He digs fingers into his thighs, hard enough to hurt, to ground him there, to keep his wits about him before he runs his mouth and ruins everything. “I admit, lately I have been distinctly feeling your presence,” very true, “but I did not wish to worry you. I saw how busy you were, and I thought to myself, the last thing I would want for you was to worry over me when you should be worrying over yourself.” Untrue. Sam had hoped Dean had felt his loss just as keenly. But now that his plan has succeeded, he wishes he could take it all back. He is selfish, he knows. He has prayed and repented a hundred times over, but he is still selfish.

Dean huffs a laugh, stands stiffly, joints cracking. He is not yet thirty, he should not be so old. “Well, unfortunately for the both of us, your scheme has failed in that regard.” He wanders to the wide windows, where tucked between them is a gramophone.

In the years following the war, Dean had turned to music as his refuge - the halls were full of somber operas and moody symphonies, often the only sign that Dean had not yet died. Cassie, as American as could be, had introduced him to jazz, to Misters Duke Ellington and Irving Berlin and, of course, George Gershwin, and it seemed as if jazz was the spark that reignited Dean’s spirit. He took to the lively music as a fish to water, seen dancing by himself, humming tunes under his breath wherever he went. Just another thing for Sam to be jealous of.

Dean puts on a new record, one Sam hasn’t heard before. “Fresh off the boat,” He says, walking back to Sam. “Mr. Gershwin has done it again.” The song is slow, with a whining, serenading violin, and the pianist on the recording doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands, but Dean relaxes near instantly, one hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Dance with me.”

Sam’s heart nearly stops beating. “Excuse me?”

“Come on, little brother,” he says, and physically hauls Sam out of his chair, “and dance with me.” He doesn’t give Sam much of a choice, large hands sliding round his waist, drawing him close against his chest.

“Dean - ” Sam’s face is burning, pulse pounding, oh God in Heaven how he’s dreamed of this for years. “What on Earth are you doing?” The violin fades away, and the singer takes up his position, her voice thin and shaky, the way Dean loves it. _When the mellow moon begins to beam, every night I dream a little dream, and of course Prince Charming is the theme - the he for me._

Dean just smiles, swaying to the beat, Sam enveloped in his arms. “I want to play this song at my wedding. What do you think of it?”

As hot as he is, Sam’s blood runs cold, and he tries not to let it show. All this hot and cold, he’s going to make himself sick. “It’s fine, but I don’t understand why you need me to dance with you.”

“Because you are the far better dancer, brother.” The wrinkles around his eyes are from laughter, no longer from sorrow. Sam does not remember the last time he ever saw Dean so happy. Not even with his bride-to-be. “And I need practice.”

The song drags on; the lady is not so clear with words, but Sam can catch snatches of them. _Some day he’ll come along, the man I love, and he’ll be big and strong, the man I love, and when he comes my way, I’ll do my best to make him stay._

This is, quite frankly, too much for Sam to bear. The two of them, alone, dancing to such a romantic ballad in the shadow of the ever dwindling fireplace - he should end this right now, save himself and Dean. But his brother’s embrace is so warm, so familiar, that Sam can’t help but lay his head on Dean’s shoulder, greedily taking in the scent of him, the firmness of his body. They have not been so close in many years. It is like they are in one of Sam’s dreams, where everything is light and love, but it is so savagely real, and therefore everything hurts too deep to say.

As the singer begins to hum, Dean hums along with her, the deep rumbles of his chest vibrating through Sam, and Sam cannot help himself, he sighs. He feels more than sees Dean’s soft smile, leaning into the weight of Dean’s cheek to his temple. They stay like this, long after the record has ended, artful chords giving way to the hissing cracks and pops of the gramophone, but Dean is still humming, still swaying so gently, and Sam cannot bring himself to move. “I’ve missed this,” Dean whispers to his hair, so soft it seems as though Sam imagined it. “The times when it was just the two of us. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve been right here, Dean.” A lie - he has not. He ran from his feelings, and he hurt the person he cares for most in the world.

Dean shakes his head, turns his nose into Sam’s hair. “I don’t mean these last few months. After the war… I cannot tell you how much I regret how I behaved in the years following the war. It was hard on me, yes, but it was hard on all of us, and on you, too, even though you had never set foot in it. I ran from my feelings, but I didn’t think, in all my grief, that I would hurt you, too, and for that, Sam, I am truly sorry.”

“Dean…” What can he even say to that? “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“I do.” The fire in the hearth is nearly gone. He thinks that maybe the darkness is a safety for Dean, the stillness letting him say the things that have been locked away in his heart. If only Sam were half as brave. “I am so sorry, brother, that I have hurt you so.”

“You could never hurt me,” whispers Sam into the fabric of his shirt. Another lie - he has been hurting every day since Dean brought home his new bride. But he must set his feelings aside for the greater good.

It’s as though Dean can sense his lie. “Sam,” he murmurs, a breath and a sigh. “Oh, my dearest, Sam.” Sam feels traitorous tears at the corners of his eyes, shuts them tight and wills them to stop. A warm, large hand brushes his cheek, and when Sam opens his eyes, he sees that Dean’s are the same, bright and blurry, watches the long fan of his lashes against his brother’s freckled cheek as Dean leans in, and presses a soft kiss to Sam’s slack, dry mouth.

 _Oh, please let me not be asleep,_ he begs to whatever god may be listening. He musters all the courage he has to kiss Dean back, and it’s better than he could have ever dreamed, every inch of him hot and flushed, his heart thumping in his throat - yet he can feel Dean’s in his chest, just as frantic, just as alive. All at once, Sam’s constitution breaks, and the tears come flooding. “Shh,” whispers Dean into his mouth, kissing him again. “Shh, my darling.”

“Dean,” Sam gasps, “You don’t - you don’t understand, I have loved you for longer than I can say, and this, this is - ” but Dean shushes him again, licking the sorrow from his cheeks.

“You will never know,” he murmurs, “you will never know how it was only the thought of coming home to you that kept me alive, in the dirt and the mud. Sam, Sam, my darling Sam.”


End file.
